How to Select a Mobile Application Development Platform
Before investing in a mobile application development platform, there are a few things to consider to ensure smooth and effortless app development. Businesses accelerate the mobile application development process and provide developers with a consolidated framework for designing, testing, and deploying apps. In other words, the process is made less complicated, yet, highly advanced. Thus, the app development process is expedited.
Mobile Application Development Platforms Mobile Application Development Platforms (MADP) are tools that allow businesses to rapidly build, test and deploy mobile apps. An increasing need for mobile apps is making businesses and enterprises rely on MADP. It speeds up the pace of development. There are many mobile app development platforms, and each claim to be superior to the other. Now the question is how you select the platform suitable for your business. To begin with, background research of a company is the best way to start. While doing so, a few factors should be considered. Here is a quick look at the factors:
Developer Tools
Tools should allow for easy testing, building, hosting and debugging of apps. There are very few MADPs that provide low-code solutions which come with drag-and-drop support and templates. This plays a crucial role in choosing the apt platforms as designers need to be comfortable with the kind of controls it provides.
Open Source Libraries
Access to Open Source Libraries is important as developers are fairly dependent on them. They play a significant role in speeding up development, and integration. It is, therefore, necessary, that the MADP platform you select offers easy access and collaboration with these libraries.
Integration of Native and Web Elements
A native app is a program that developed for a particular device and can interact and leverage the features of a particular operating system or software installed on that platform. Web apps, on the other hand, are hosted on browsers and can typically offer more information than a mobile site. The primary reason is mobile sites compress information to improve usability.
Mobile App Development Platform - Web, Native and Hybrid While earlier, native apps were all the rage, today it is difficult to tell the difference between a web app, a native app, and a hybrid app. It has become important to select a MADP that easily integrates the native and web elements of an app when developing for multiple OS platforms.
Security
Lost devices pose a threat to enterprise app security. For this reason, they need an extra layer of security with certain authentication and authorization procedures in place. The MADP of choice needs to offer secure and easy management of data in all kinds of environments. Hence, it is necessary to assess a platform from the point of its integration abilities. Typically with MDM (Mobile Device Management) and MAM (Mobile Application Management) tools.
App Monitoring and Analytics
User experience is critical to the development of enterprise apps and user feedback allows developers to make modifications simultaneously. MADP plays a significant role in translating this user data into insights and analytics. This provides an easy way to monitor an app’s performance and alter or add features accordingly.
Deployment
MADPs can be utilized as a cloud-based service or on-premise. Cloud service can provide an early start without upfront costs while on-premise fees can offer a lower total cost with increased levels of security. Final Thoughts Before investing in a MADP, enterprises need to establish the developer’s needs and the capabilities of the MADP in delivering on those needs. Read the full article
